


War in Time

by KarenHardy (PhoenixSR)



Series: Hardy Three Mysteries [13]
Category: Hardy Boys - Franklin W. Dixon
Genre: F/M, Honestly I don't know what to tag this just read it pls, I'm Bad At Summaries, I'm Bad At Tagging
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-23
Updated: 2019-08-23
Packaged: 2020-09-24 10:37:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20357083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PhoenixSR/pseuds/KarenHardy
Summary: Frank Hardy takes a look back, to one case, to one choice.





	War in Time

“Frank?”

Karen sounded small. She always did in these scenarios. I sometimes forget she’s not a little kid anymore.  
“Yes?” I replied, just as hushed, just as quiet. 

We didn’t want our captors to hear us after all. We were in the back of a moving van with nothing but each other and an old beat up radio that only worked when you hit it.

“Where do you think we’re going?”

The age old question. Every time it was somewhere different. A warehouse, an apartment, a cabin in the woods.

“I don’t know.”

It’s the same answer I give her every time, but I have no new news to give her.

She sighs and starts to fidget again, the ropes that were once around her wrists making for the best thing for her to play with.

Of course, she didn’t need to play. Karen Louise Hardy was a woman now. She wasn’t the little girl who’d walked into this war. She was a soldier coming out. 

It’s hard to say when this thing I call ‘war’ started. Was it the first time we were held captive against our will? Or the first time we were shot at by a passing car? Was it my first injury? Joe’s? Karen’s? Did this war start with our father? Is it just his burden that shaped us into the warriors we are today?

I couldn’t be sure. Joe hummed quietly in his corner, back against the wall that separated us from our captors in the cab of the van. I was familiar with the tune, but not the words. I didn’t want to stop him, so I didn’t ask.

We drove on in silence. Only the static of the beat up radio and Joe’s humming broke the monotone sound of nothingness that permeated the ride.

Finally the van stopped. The door opened. We were brought inside.

I was singled out, my siblings taken away. I sat down in the chair they provided and let them cuff me to the table.

I once read in a book when I was young, “People aren't either wicked or noble. They're like chef's salads, with good things and bad things chopped and mixed together in a vinaigrette of confusion and conflict.” I used to think that was a rather bleak outlook. That is to say, I thought myself noble. But I realized the world is not that black and white.

The people who’d taken us gave me a proposition. They weren’t bad people. Not really. They would take us out of the country, give us new names and get us set up wherever we wanted. They wanted us out of this war. Not because they had big plans, not because they needed us out of the way. They genuinely wanted to give us a chance.

Child soldiers, they called us.

In a way, I agreed. My sister should have grown up a musician, my brother an athlete, me a scholar. But instead we grew up fighters. It was tempting, but what would we do?

We had grown into this life. 

It was just as much a part of us as we were of it.

My sister was going into the service soon. My brother and I were starting a private detective agency. The war was not going to end, even if we withdrew our part in it.

So I said no.

And they let us go.

At home that night, my sister came to me. Asked me what they’d said and how I’d responded. I told her. I asked her if she would have wanted to go. She thought for a moment.

“No.”

“I didn’t think so.” I nodded.

“This is our life. We’ve made the best of our lot.”

I agreed.

So, in the end, we kept on fighting. We would live our lives fighting, until one day, my sister came home from overseas, and decided active deployment was not for her. She almost lost her hearing, and a dear friend in a blast that cost her, thankfully, just her lower right leg. She looked at me, with tears in her eyes and told me she loved me for the last time in a long time. She was moving to Oregon. She was getting a fresh start. She was leaving this war. It was time.

Years later, after another close call, Joe decided to leave the business to me and travel the world. Of course he took his once girlfriend, now wife of six years Iola and boyfriend, ever loyal partner, Vijay, with him. They came back two years later with their eighteen month old daughter Janessa. He’d done his time.

I fought well into my adulthood. I grew old in this fight. Finally, at the ripe old age of forty seven, I ran into an old friend. Nancy Drew hadn’t changed in the slightest. She’d become a detective herself and married Ned Nickerson, who she relayed to me, had died of cancer the year before. I found myself just as in love with her as I had been as a young man. We were wed three years later, and while we were never blessed with children, lived long and happy lives. It was about time.  
  



End file.
